


Aquaintances

by Sarek and Amanda Archive Maintainer (Selek)



Series: A Most Distant Blood [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M, L.L. Dusty Jones, Mary Stacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 07:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selek/pseuds/Sarek%20and%20Amanda%20Archive%20Maintainer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a Sarek-meets-Amanda story.</p><p>Written by L. L. (Dusty) Jones and Mary Stacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aquaintances

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story that Dusty never finished. Her untimely death prompted her friend, Mary, to finish it now.

Today marks the 1st anniversary of Dusty's death, so I have been holding this until today to start posting. She started to write these stories in the mid 70's, so the only "established" canon for them is TOS and TAS. So you won't see, say Skon as Sarek's father cause the name didn't make it in until STIII. No "fanon" whatsoever, along with any pro-novels are part of this universe. 

There are 4 interconnected stories to this 1st "book", with this first one being, (I would say) PG for language and mild sexual innuendo. I hope you enjoy. My plan is that each story will be complete before posting, so while I will take a few weeks to get it up, it will technically not be a WIP. The WIP will be the next one as I have started working on it, in this case, Friends.

Finally, many thanks for Caz for giving me the confidence that my work it this is fairly seamless. I am not half the writer Dusty was, but I am trying to make this as fluid as possible and not have my contributions stand out like sore thumbs!

 

A MOST DISTANT BLOOD

by L.L. "Dusty" Jones and Mary Stacy

"Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same."  
\-----Emily Bronte

 

BOOK ONE: EXILE

ACQUAINTANCES

 

Chapter 1

They were in luck. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a someone get out of a cab a short distance ahead, right in front of the shrine just as they came around the side of it. AJ sprinted ahead to grab it. By the time he had caught up with her, she had everything set, now all she had to do was get him into it.

"I didn't get a chance to pick up that present for Father Tom," he said, sliding a cashtab into her hands. "Get him something nice. He's been so helpful to us both, AJ."

They stood before the open taxi door, breathing in the faded scent of summer leaves, thinking hard for something to say that they hadn't already said a hundred times since they'd left home. Deep-voiced chimes began to ring in the hot air above their heads, drowning out the snick of city cars disconnecting from the grid as they turned off Michigan Avenue at the Catholic University sign.

She hadn't thought it would be this hard. She had thought she was looking forward to being out on her own, away from the island and into the exciting world beyond. "You're going to miss your flight, Daddy."

"I can catch another one. "

He stood back and looked at her. His eyes were too shiny. "When I get on that flight you'll be farther and longer away from me than you've ever been in your life."

"Daddy," she said finally, "Its time to go – you're going to lose this cab if you don't go now."

Finally helplessly, he said, "Amanda--"

"You call me that again, Daddy," she warned, balling up her fists, "and I'll have to lay you out."

That made him laugh a little.

"You keep those dukes up," he told her holding her wrists. "Be in by dark and if anybody tries to get fresh with you, you swing it like you mean it." He looked at her softly, rustling the curls that stood out around her head in the humidity, a corona in the sunlight. "My little starfish." 

AJ watched the car until it disappeared at the bottom of the circle and joined the traffic on Michigan Avenue, then she turned from the drive to face the expanse of rising white granite. She hoped he'd be all right.

 

The Shrine of the Immaculate Conception sat jewel-like on Michigan Avenue in a nest of dark, grey, neo-Gothic, 19th Century buildings on the campus of Catholic University. 

A handful of ugly late 20th and early 21st Century survivors crouched as if frozen in the act of sneaking onto the grounds, surrounding the ancient-looking structures like silent invaders. In some places, among some people, there was a movement to demolish everything built before the middle of the 21st Century, to pull it all down and replace it with clean, modern, fully enabled classical look-alikes made of inexpensive, lightweight materials. The idea was they'd be easier to upgrade, easier to alter as the need arose, but AJ felt comforted by the solid solemnity of the natural stone buildings and the idea that it would take more than whim or fashion to convert them. These were the kind that stood against time, were rooted in the earth, would not fail.

A couple passed AJ with children too young to be college students. Tourists. Some things never changed. She seemed to be destined to a life surrounded by onlookers and gawkers, she sighed, as she watched them begin the hot climb to the main entrance.

There wasn't a breath of wind anywhere. The air sat heavy and still over the building, and steam seemed to be rising from it. Yet here and there seagulls like small clumps of snow decked the Shrine's red, Spanish tile roof. Where there were seagulls, there should be open water. Shouldn't there be some kind of breeze as well?

AJ looked down. The disposable cashtab in her open palm would melt if she stayed out here much longer. And she had a promise to keep.

A set of doors under the main stairs to the Shrine led directly to the visitor's gift shop. AJ slipped past the end-of-summer tourists pawing racks of holy medals, rosaries, and souvenir figurines—Father Tom already had enough holy bric-a-brac to send the island to the bottom. Instead, she went prowling in the book racks along one wall and turned up a volume on the history of the Shrine itself. Since all of the display copies were deactivated she had to wait for a vacant reader—only one of the many reasons she liked real books. You didn't have to wait for anything to read one, not even a quiet corner. Just open the covers and be taken away. Someone was talking.

"—whose presence here suggests more than a simple exchange of scientific information."

Two men were watching a newsclip on the screen above the salepoint. More charter talks. Every time you turned around there was another planet coming into the Federation. And Earth was always in the middle of the negotiations. AJ wondered who it was this time. One day, she thought, somebody was going to tell the Earth to butt out.

"The Cygnetians?"

"The Vulcans," one of the men told her.

AJ looked up, but the clip was over. The weather along the east coast was drawing itself on the screen, and that awful musitron was playing behind it.

The Vulcans.

After clips of war-dancing Andorians and interminable coverage of Katullans falling off surfboards in the crook of Australia, the Vulcans might be interesting. They kept to themselves and no one knew much about them except for the brief, vague entries you found in history books: That their planet was arid, that the people had green blood and pointed ears, and that they claimed to have no emotions.

Now there was a tall tale. She wondered whose idea it had been in the first place, the historians or the Vulcans. Both perhaps. Well, she'd have to see it to believe it. No emotions would make a pretty boring race.

A reader became available, and AJ took a quick look at the Shrine book. It had lots of stunning visuals, historical and architectural data on the building of the Shrine and the Knights Tower, a nice section on cultural context that wasn't entirely religious in tone, and an attractive case suitable for gifting. Perfect. She bought it, waited for the activation tone, then stuffed it in her knapsack. Maybe she'd read it before she sent it to Father Tom.

In the passage outside the gift shop, a breath of hot air followed an elderly couple in from the outside. She needed a drink. The visitor's cafeteria was just across the passage from the gift shop, but students would probably be moored at the dining hall, away from the thirsty-tourist price tags. She watched the elderly couple as they passed her and disappeared through the arch at the other end of the passage.

That was an idea. Maybe she could cut through the lower level and out the other end of the Shrine. AJ let them get a little ahead of her, then followed them into the dim, quiet space. According to the book she'd gotten for Father Tom, the Shrine was two churches really—one built on top of the other, one in each half of the 20th Century. The main, upper church was one of the largest on Earth and could seat more than 6,000 people. The Knights Tower with its carillon rose beside the Shrine building as one of the tallest structures in the city, and could be seen miles away from two counties in Maryland.

She and Daddy had surveyed the upper church together the day before. It was very grand, quite lovely—all soaring spaces and sunlight. But this place was—well, it really was another thing: a dim world of bronzes and marble statues, holy artifacts behind plastolene facades, banks of flickering candles. Suspended on chains from the ceiling, antique light fixtures glowed the color of old parchment and cast surprising shadows against floor and walls. While AJ was meeting with her academic advisor, Daddy had visited this original, earlier part of the Shrine with its crypt church and its collection of holy artifacts and had wanted her to come back here with him this morning, but they'd run out of time.

AJ stopped and looked at her watch. The Tower should be chiming the hour but she couldn't hear it. Near the stairwells the raised voices of organ and choir from the grand upper church reached only in hushed tones. The light-colored travertine walls and squarish support pillars were carved all over in dark letters with names of sponsors, some she'd read, from as far back as the early 20th Century. In the center of the wide space, the pillars were reversed: pale letters gleamed out of black granite and broke the field of vision so that the artificial cavern seemed to go on forever. In spite of the heat outside, there weren't many tourists, making the faint echoes of voices and footfalls rare and distant. Only once did she find anyone sitting silently in a pew in one of the small chapels along the perimeter, and he got up and left soon after she passed the large, squared-off pillars framing its entrance.

The chapels on this level reflected ethnic traditions of some of the old cultures of Earth, some of which had disappeared long ago leaving solemn stone testaments such as these as the only evidence of the many original cultures that inspired them. Most of them, AJ remembered reading, dated from the 20th Century, although one in particular had been installed in the 22nd. She remembered hearing in school that there had been some argument over the design and some difficulty when it had been installed.

For one thing, people were still arguing over its name. AJ found it tucked back in a corner requiring a jog from the main hall.

Well. It was quite beautiful, really. AJ stood at the back of the chapel looking, listening. There was the play on the name—a brilliant star reached down—or the  
waves leaped up—it was hard to tell which it was supposed to be in a dazzling spill of tiny tiles in sea-greens and starry blues. Our Lady, Star of the Sea hovered overhead, luminous white marble in the formfitting "garment" that some found troublesome, her body bent so slightly at the waist with arms straight out from her bare shoulders, frozen in time and space like a diver caught a half-second off the board. The entire effect was magnified by the splashing of a low water-curtain between spectator and display and by a column of light as clean as a sunbeam playing on the whole scene from above. A shrine dedicated to the rebirth of land lost to the "Big Shake" of her great-grandparents time. An earthquake of such magnitude that the entire Cape Cod peninsula disappeared, only to be born again as a star-shaped island, Stella Maris, the place she called home.

There seemed to be something in the mosaic behind the altar, some pattern in subtle shading or the play of light on the tiles. The altar and the mosaic behind it were separated on its three exposed sides from the temporary seating and kneelers of the rest of the chapel by a line of coarse spray lifting diamonds of spray to splash back on the tiled ocean foam. On the one side a small gate was the only admittance that would allow closer inspection.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, gazing up through the screen of her lashes, trying to catch just what it was she was missing. Whatever it was seemed to be catching her peripheral vision. What was doing it? The surface texture? The finish? Or a slight variation in the colors themselves? The only way to find out was a closer look; she moved to step past the barrier and slid through the gate just as the sound of a voice lightly echoed in the central space. Just her luck to have a tour group materialize now.

Willing herself into a narrow slot between two square upright stone pillars AJ waited, listing. The guide came closer with her group, speaking of archetypes in Terran religion. It certainly was not a Catholic tour group, she thought as she strained her neck a bit to see a tour group containing some offworld visitors. A rather motley crew, the only thing they seemed to have in common was the earbud translators. She wondered why a non-Terran would find any interest in the shrine. Suddenly a slight whur. 

A couple of Cygnetians were standing on the opposite side of the chapel, while a Plamesean took their holo. She guessed maybe there might not be as much of a difference—they were still the same tourists no matter what the color of their skin or the number of their limbs.

She turned back to concentrate now on the statue, and she had to wonder, so, what was the problem? Other than the diaphanous mermaid-dress and the fact that it wasn't plain whether she was going up or coming down, there wasn't much here that you wouldn't find in any depiction of "Our Lady, Star of the Sea" anyplace in the world, even less than the one AJ knew from home. Even the starfish crown was in place.

Her attention was drawn to a taller man at the edge of the group who wasn't paying much attention to the guide but was craning his neck to see where the light shining on the statue was coming from. Briefly, he looked in her direction, and AJ froze in fear of being caught. She had to duck further between the pillars, making herself as inconspicuous as possible until she heard the end-of-speech tone and the last footsteps fade away. 

She waited for what seemed like an hour, but was probably no more than a minute or two, before emerging from her hiding place and slipping back behind the barrier. The latch released with a click, the gate swung on silent hinges, and with another click, AJ was outside the altar and the gate was closed. No one stood waiting to haul her off for disciplinary action, all she had to do was to make it out of the shrine and she was home free. It wouldn't do for a scholarship student to be caught where she was not supposed to be on her first day.

She rushed as quickly as she could, sneaking out the far side door along the blocked side of the shrine and traveling along it until found herself in the grotto at the back base of the shrine. She was home free.

The tower chimed. What time was it? Had it really only been a half hour that she had been in the chapel? The time seemed to stand still in the shrine, clothed in perpetual darkness with only candles and artificial lighting to show the way. It was too early for dinner, but back in the heat, she remembered the thirst and her drive to get to the dining hall that had sent her into the lower shrine in the first place.

She turned to make her way up to the grassy commons that separated the shrine and the college and, from there, to the dining hall. In the distance, she seemed to hear the tour guide still droning. It was time to leave the tourists and get settled in her new life and the real world.

 

 

Chapter 2

There was a crack in the window.

AJ had been sitting in front of the window for nearly an hour, staring out through the glass between the frames, and hadn't noticed it until now. It was very fine, actually, only showing when the light struck it a certain way, from a certain angle. It was like a part of the window, maybe even formed within the pane itself.

The slim edge of her transactions card was thick enough to glide smoothly over it without a bump, but if she reached up, her fingers could just barely feel the breech in the glass. When she moved her head to one side, or tilted it, the crack disappeared.

"Is it the whole campus, or just the library?"

"The whole campus."

The voices were coming from inside the women's room. AJ drew her knees up closer to be out of the way of the door when it opened wide.

"Somebody's overloaded one of the access ports somewhere. It was probably Mars and that crew, you know."

If the access ports were blocked, would they cancel classes? How would she know where her discussion sections were? Where did you go here to find changes when the APs were down?

Someone at the desk downstairs would know. AJ tucked her transaction card into her shirt pocket. That was another thing she needed too. It had the whole Amanda Jaquith Grayson on it—it made her feel like a naughty little girl waiting to be called into the principal's office.

And she had been, spending her locker money on a paper copy of "The Case for Preeminence of Sentient Orders" that she had found, when she could have pulled a copy from the university library. Yes, but the APs were down now! Right! See? she told God, the angels, and any interested saints—I had to buy paper.

AJ pulled the book from her knapsack carefully. She fanned the pages, listening to the flppflppflppflpp of the leaves and catching the new-book smell as they ruffled the air. This time of year, the air at home blew fresh and cool in off the ocean at night, but here in Washington, the evenings were heavy and humid, and not a leaf had yet to go gold. Through the age-dimmed glass, the trees in the tiny courtyard outside the library window swayed in dingy light like ocean plants in an underwater column, and summer-green leaves fluttered silently against the glass. There was a latch on the window, and hinges as well, but many, many years ago someone had painted them shut to keep the climate control in.

If the glass weren't in the way, she thought, she could just reach out and pull herself up into the windy branches, they were that close. She wondered if someone had planted the trees in the courtyard, or if they had just blown in on the wind and rooted themselves in there, growing and thriving where they had landed by chance.

AJ yanked her legs back just in time. A second later and all of her toes would have been broken. The tall blonde girl, just exploded out of the bathroom, said something that sounded like "Sorry," and "Love your socks!" before pounding down the stairs in those boots with the buckles everyone was wearing.

Hunt Country had been a big hit in the spring, and the designers were all over it. On the Cape, you saw a touch of influence—boots and hats were showing up for the fall—but down here, even in the heat, you had to look very hard to find anyone under 25 who didn't look like they had just climbed down off a horse. It was a whole other world.

"Oh, go ahead and get at least one thing like the kids down here're wearing."

Daddy had gotten her all settled in—furniture, clothes, food. He'd slept on her sofa that last night and taken her to breakfast in the morning. Then when she finally went to hug him good-bye, he hadn't wanted to let her go.

But it was time to let her go. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a grown woman and she had to do things on her own. Harvard hadn't been far enough away. At Catholic University, it wouldn't be as easy for Daddy to pop over to the mainland for a weekend, and he couldn't use the excuse of having business in the city to catch a later shuttle when he did so that he could take her to dinner. For one thing, he couldn't afford the shuttle to Washington too often.

The District they called it here. People from all over Earth passed through it, the same way people from other worlds congregated in San Francisco. She'd never been to San Francisco, but she could build a picture of it in her mind as if she were standing on a corner near the World Port Authority, watching people step out of the big, ugly, pinky-grey building and stop to breathe the air—Earth air—for the first time.

She wondered what he was doing. He'd said he'd write, but he had always been lousy at that. If she'd been smart, she wouldn't have seen him again during the break. Daddy had told her not to. But she wasn't smart, and she had seen him again, and all she'd managed to get out of it was a pile of soggy tissues.

Now don't start.

Footsteps came from the top of the steps, and three girls in Greek t-shirts appeared and headed her way. It was Rush Week; all the sororities and fraternities were holding mixers and there were signs all over the place. Last night, she had heard the music from the apartment lobby.

They had always danced: at dances, at parties, even alone when nobody was watching. Especially then. Daddy would wave good-bye and off the two of them would go. She'd loved to dance—anything, it didn't matter as long as her feet were moving. And she'd liked to be in his arms, to feel the heat rising off him.

Now, he was gone, farther than she had even been in her life, higher than the sky, farther than the moon. Stop it. Now. AJ got up right then and brushed off the seat of her pants and shouldered her knapsack. She hadn't transferred to CUA to drag the whole sad episode with her. And sitting on the floor outside the women's room in a college library was an easy way to get yourself killed. Better to take her chances in the library. The view was not as good, but the risk of injury was much lower.

 

Attempting to get any info at the desk downstairs was useless. People were crowding around trying to get from the library aide behind the counter the kinds of information they usually got from the comp APs. AJ found a space to squeeze in and began copying the sign with the library's operating hours into her notebook by hand.

"Links are down," was repeated over and over, a broken recording.

A tall man stepped up to the counter to her right. She saw the arm of a hot-looking jacket swing back and forth as he signed a form. He must be dying in that today.

AJ flagged the library assistant when he came back behind the counter to verify her ID and code her account manually.

"Sure. You XLR8?"

She was not in accelerated placement. Couldn't he see her birthdate? AJ just shook her head, got the confused look, and smiled mildly until he finished coding and flipped the screen back before moving on to the man next to her. There were several screens of demographics to get through before they cached you out and there was no way to get around it and have your pass registered. AJ hoped somebody was getting a good research credit out of it.

The man in the hot jacket was trying to ask for the location of journals on theoretical biophysics and getting nowhere.

"What do you want? 'Theatre box office' journals?"

 

The man repeated himself.

"Yeah," said the aide, "That's what I said: 'theatre box office'."

But that wasn't what the he had asked for.

"He said 'theoretical biophysics journals'," AJ told the aide.

"Huh?"

She glanced up at the aide and saw the odd look on his face. The man's accent was terrible, but it was perfectly plain what he was looking for.

"He said he wanted to see the most recent journals on 'theoretical biophysics'," she told the aide again. He was just a student. He probably sat there for a couple of hours doing his homework until another student came in for a couple of hours and did her homework. The aide probably didn't know much about the library, and he probably didn't care.

I ought to apply for his job, she thought. At least I like being in a library.

AJ turned back and finished copying the library hours. She heard the aide explain that the access ports were down, and that the only periodicals available until they were up were paper copies pulled off and waiting for recycling. Then he gave roundabout directions to where those would be found that would have been difficult for an excellent speaker of English to follow. And then he went on to "help" someone else. Lovely.

"C'mon," she said, tugging at the elbow of the poor man's sleeve, "I'll show you the way."

After four twists and turns she would have gotten them lost if there hadn't been signs.

This part of the library was older, renovated much less recently, and the lighting was different—less diffuse. She could smell the old books: the leather and thick, snapping paper of 19th Century books; the poor old 20th Century ones, gone in the acid disintegration of cheap paper; the 21st Century volumes in better shape and quality; the fewer and fewer titles and the prevalence of showcase volumes since the early part of this century.

"They should be right back here."

And sure enough, she found the pulled hard copies of journal articles piled in bins on a set of shelves back in a dark, damp hole behind the elevator near a recycle chute with a big misspelled sign pleading:

CONSERVE RESOURES. PLEASE PUT USED HARDCOPPYS IN WITH THE APPROPIATE TOPIC CATAGORY. LOOK BEFORE PULLING NEW COPYS.

The bins were full, even before fall classes started. Apparently she wasn't the only one in town who preferred paper copies in hand to a moving stream of lights on a display. AJ hated the thought. And she hated to have a glass screen between her and everything she wanted to touch.

"These are hard copies that the students and other professors pulled to read," she said, gesturing with her hands to the shelves.

She had to look back to see if he was still there, he was so quiet, a silhouette framed by a lattice of empty shelves.

"It looks like most of the physics articles are in this bin here. They aren't divided down more than than, I'm afraid."

He hesitated for a moment at the end of the stacks then came forward when she beckoned, passing under the old-fashioned directed lighting fixtures, in and out of the stark beams, one by one. He stopped half a shelf away and waited.

"Here," she said, finally. "All of this."

She reached into a bin and fished out something that looked interesting and held it out for him. He nodded and took it from her with large hands. He said nothing.  
"The access ports are down," she reminded him. "These are mostly all in English. Are you sure you can manage by yourself?"

A bag hung from his shoulder. He reached inside and produced a small device with a blinking light—some sort of text translator, she guessed.

He appeared satisfied, and didn't seem as if he was going to say "thank-you," so she squeezed by him and started out onto the library floor. Something else occurred to her. She stopped at the end of the shelves and turned back. She remembered the library aide's odd look. "Excuse me."

He had a sheet of paper now in each hand. He turned and looked her way. He had really wonderful, strong, patrician features.

"You're not from around here, are you?" Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! What an entirely idiotic thing to say. "You're from Vulcan, aren't you?"

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. He wasn't what she would have expected if she'd ever thought about it before. He was, well…not as different as she would have expected.

"Well," she said in parting, "I hope you find what you're looking for," and headed back to the front door.

 

Chapter 3

 

A milestone. The first full week of classes was over and she was still alive. Physics was bad, of course, and history—

"For God's sake," she'd overheard at the bookstore, "don't get Gill for world history—" two girls with sorority ties, "—it's one thing if you have to remember that stuff, but he wants you to understand it."

So, of course, she got Gill—not so bad actually. The class was called "World History: Causes and Effects." He was young and irreverent and ever-ready with a challenge. And he was that kind; the screens sat idly flickering in your face while he talked and prompted you to think about the assignment and to voice your thoughts in class. This wasn't going to be a "read the text and get an 'A'" kind of course. The tests, she figured, would be murder.

At the first session, he had made each of them stand up in front of the class and tell the whole history of the world in five minutes or less. Then, after everyone had made complete fools of themselves, the assignment for the next class was to write the whole thing down in a hundred words or less. AJ had an idea already that was just odd enough to work with Gill as the instructor. That was one word per year for only the last hundred. The big question was, did she want to do it freeform from memory the way they'd had to do it in class, or check timelines first? Maybe she could find some real books to use at the library.

 

It was Friday, and the history was her last class. Back home, if the air was this warm and sticky, she would have caught the lift for home and headed straight for the ocean. Here, she headed straight for some ice cream.

"Wait up! Hey, you! Wait up! Socks!" 

AJ didn't know at first whether the yelling was for her, but she stopped at the edge of the grass and looked back. The blonde girl from the library, the one who'd smacked her foot with the women's room door, was legging it up the slope toward her.

"Wait, okay?" she called, waving one of her arms. She pounded up, not even breathless.

"Hi!"

"Hi."

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop the other day and talk to you at the library, but Mary Catherine had this startling new tape and we had to listen to it before her parents got home and she lives over in Virginia and the shuttle doesn't run every five minutes during the day and she called her brother from the pay phone and he said he'd pick us up out in front of the Shrine if we were there in five minutes and he just always rolls past the curb without stopping because he's such an asshole."

It was AJ who was breathless.

"Gill liked what you said."

The blonde girl had been sitting in the back during history. She'd been chattering in whispers with a dark-haired boy next to her until Professor Gill had made her give her version of the "History of the World". Then she'd looked like Lot's wife.

"He thought it was good," the girl went on, "about how 'people lived perfectly well for a long time without history until the concept of personal property and inheritance developed and people had to keep records on who was descended from whom and that's why we're in this class today.'"

AJ stopped on the sidewalk and looked up at the girl. "You remembered that practically word for word."

Or maybe exactly word for word. The girl had remembered what AJ had said better than she did herself. "Oh, I'm good at memorizing lines," the girl said matter-of-factly. Then suddenly, she was intense again. "I'm a theatre major. Can you tell?" Before AJ could make sense out of that, the girl went on. "I was in two mainstage plays last year and sometimes I model for an agency in Virginia." She wasn't bragging. She grinned and pointed down. "I love your socks!" she said. "Chandler & Harris—Arlington. Right?"

AJ shook her head. "Jordan Marsh—Boston."

The girl stared at her with warm brown eyes. "'Jadden Mash'?"

The girl was as pretty as a cheerleader, built like a model, and probably half of the feminine members of her high school graduating class had wanted to see her dead. And she probably hadn't known it.

AJ liked her immediately.

 

Patricia Van Enders—Trish—was a townie. In two-and-a-half minutes, AJ knew that her family came from Maryland and that she knew the "city", the people, and all the places that you had to sneak into because they were illegal until you were twenty-one. "Except 'Schatzi's'. It's open to students, they serve non-alco beer, and all the cutest guys have jobs there as waiters." 

"Oh. That's a prerequisite for employment?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, do they have that on the application? You know, 'Are you cute?'"

Trish looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't know," she admitted seriously. "Probably. They have to wear these leather shorts for their uniform."

AJ stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Had she heard right? "They wear leather shorts?"

"Yeah."

"Leather shorts?"

"Uh-huh."

Trish was searching through her purse for something. "After all, AJ, who's going to sit there drinking beer all night looking at ugly guys?" She found her mirror and smiled. First at her reflection, then at AJ. She was serious.

"I don't know," AJ admitted to her, "but after a few beers, who would care?"

 

Trish gave her remark all the consideration of a serious thought, then nodding to herself, said, "I never thought of that." The mirror was folded and put back in her purse. Trish grinned, was about to say something, then suddenly her eyes widened and she turned to look toward the Shrine. "C'mon!" Trish grabbed her by the arm and started hauling her across the plaza. "We're going to miss everything!"

"Everything" was a booming male voice issuing from somewhere in the upper reaches of the Shrine's Knights Tower, commenting on the clothes being worn by passing students, faculty members, and tourists.

"Oh, my God."

"That's the whole thing!" cried Trish. "It's supposed to be God doing a fashion show!"

That's exactly what it was. People were stopping in the middle of the grass and on the stairs, looking up, dropping their mouths open, and then—at least some of them—were laughing.

"I don't believe it."

Trish nodded. "Isn't it just incredible?"

"Incredible isn't the word for it," AJ said.

"And next, we have two young ladies, just as fresh as Eve herself, sporting the newest 'Hunt Country' look in brown and tan."

"What."

"It's us!"

Trish began a wild dance in the middle of the walkway, startling the two nuns—"tacky, but traditional"—who were trying to get in out of the crossfire. "He's doing us! C'mon!"

And AJ was dragged out from beneath the trees into full view of anyone, including the tourists, on the portico of the Shrine. She didn't know whether to laugh out loud or run for cover.

AJ pulled her arm loose, and stood, dumbfounded, while Trish strutted professionally up and down the walkway, doing turns and gestures like a model while the fashion commentary in stentorian tones went on for what seemed like hours about her "heavenly bearing" and "celestial raiment".

"Thank you, Ms. Van Enders," boomed the voice. "And now, in our 'Jailbait Collection'—"

Jail Bait? She was now 19! AJ felt her face go red.

Luckily, the director of the Shrine came barrelling out of a door under the side stairs with a couple of police officers and saved her from shaking her fist at the "Voice of God" and yelling something completely blasphemous in the presence of a priest who was leaning against the railing, crossing himself.

"C'mon," Trish urged, grabbing AJ once more by the arm and dragging her off across the grass, "everybody'll be at 'Schatzi's'."

 

Trish led her across Michigan Avenue and down the street into a hollow holding a strip of stores and small businesses. AJ followed her into one of these establishments and to a row of tables along a wall booth where a group was gathering. Somebody ordered a pitcher of beer, and a waiter in traditional German dress plunked it on the table. Someone poured, and a glass was shoved under her nose.

Lederhosen. Of course. That's what Trish had meant. 'Schatzi's' was done up like a German beer hall, and the wait staff wore the traditional dirndls or leather shorts.

Other than the costumes, Schatzi's was like any other college watering hole. Music blared intermittently, the doors to the street and the restrooms were constantly in motion, and people sat as far away from their friends as possible so that they could yell across the room to them. A few people were dancing; a few were actually drinking fractioned beer and eating. AJ took a closer look around and—sure enough—somebody was crawling around under the tables, ostensibly looking for a missing pen/coin/contact lens but really just pulling people's socks down; somebody was doing obscene things with food; and in a back booth, a couple were in the throes of pre-foreplay. She could have been in any college barn off Harvard Square.

AJ passed up the beer—it was non-alcoholic anyway for the underage students—and just sat listening. It was fascinating, really.

They'd been there for only a few minutes when the street door flew open and a girl with the reddest hair AJ had ever seen in her life darted in with a couple of other students close behind.

Everybody in the long booth started talking at once.

"Mars! That was a wiz!"

"Fulton, you are perfectly startling!"

"How did you do the voice, Mars? Wave distorter?"

Mars? Mars Fulton? Where had she—

The night in the library when she had almost met Trish, the girl in the women's room with her had said something about the linkages being down because "Mars and that crew" had overloaded an access port somewhere. AJ had thought they were talking about some sort of interference from Mars, the planet.

The redhead pulled up a chair and only put one knee in it. AJ watched her in awe. This one girl had flipped a switch somewhere and brought an entire university to a standstill.

AJ leaned across the table. A cast of curiosity had always been one of her weaknesses. "What are you going to do when they find the speaker?" she asked.

"No speaker," said Mars, pulling a messy slab of electronic parts from her jacket pocket. "Sonics. I bounced the sound off the tower from over near the bookstore. No hardware left behind. No evidence. Startling, huh?"

She set the electronics on the table and pulled the binoculars from around her neck. Finally, she looked up to see who she was talking to and paused. She hesitated for a second, then stabbed a finger in AJ's direction and demanded to know of the others who she was.

Temptation got the better of her. Before Trish could open her mouth, AJ stepped forward and spoke for herself. "A. J. Grayson, out-of-state campus security recruit."

The girl missed only half a beat. "And you're full of shit, Curly, I like you. "

And to a chorus of Three Stooges noises, the girl made her way around the end table and crawled over two big football types to the inside of the booth. One of the boys who had come in with Mars suddenly ran for cover, clearing the floor between the door and the table in two leaps. A moment before the police burst in, Mars scooped up the electronic parts and dropped them into the half-full pitcher of beer. Then she vigorously crossed herself and yelled, "Hail Mary, full of grace—"

The police skidded to a halt just inside the door. Trish jabbed AJ in the ribs; she was the only one in the place except the waiters who hadn't joined in.

"…blessed art thou among women."

One of the cops glanced suspiciously around, while the other turned bright red and started backing out, pulling the other one with him. For half a minute, the first one resisted, then shook his head and went.

"...and at the hour of our death."

Now, that was frighteningly appropriate at the moment. The street door closed and the police disappeared.

"Amen!"

"Hallelujah!"

"Praise the Lord!"

This last from a girl wearing a Star of David on a gold chain around her neck. That was nice; they would all go straight to Hell ecumenically.

 

When all the excitement died down, Trish introduced her a little more formally to Mars. The beer she had been ignoring was suddenly in her hands. It was awful, but she sipped at it politely while she ran the gauntlet with Mars.

"Harvard, huh? Pre-med?"

"No. I—"

"Pre-law?"

"No. I was a business major."

"So, why'd you come down here?"

AJ didn't answer at first. What could she say? "I changed my major."

"To what?"

"Psychology."

"Oh, yeah?"

That, of all things, seemed to please her. The heat let up.

"I went to a psychologist once."

"You did?"

"Yeah. He said I had 'latent maniacal tendencies'."

AJ was not surprised. And they aren't 'latent,' either.

"It runs in the family, you know."

AJ felt her head bobbing up and down.

Suddenly Mars stood up and waved, "Hey! Let's have some service over here!" She sat down and proceeded to fish her electronics out of the beer pitcher.

"Where's Stunkard?" somebody asked.

Trish sat down beside AJ, a mug of beer from two different pitchers in either hand. "He's in rehearsal," she said, then began taking gulps of beer, first from one mug, then the other.

"What are you doing?" AJ asked her.

"Hmm?"

"That—"

Trish looked at her beer mugs, then back at AJ, "Oh. I just like to brew my own." As soon as she had both mugs down to half, she filled one of the mugs with some of the beer from the other, then poured that back into the first one.

"Why don't you just pour half from one pitcher and half from another?"

Trish stared at her as if she had honestly never thought of that before. Another pitcher of beer was delivered and she tried it. Half-a-dozen people came by asking where "Stunkard" was, wandering away when they found out her wasn't there. AJ leaned back in the booth and pulled Trish back with her.

"Who is this "Stunkard"?" she asked.

"He's a real cute guy in theatre. Everybody wants to go out with him. He waits tables here part time." She took a sip from one of her mugs. "He looks real good in leather shorts."

"You going to his party?"

After a few moments of comparative quiet, AJ realized that Mars was talking to her. "Excuse me?"

"Stunkard's party," said Mars. "He's a real asshole, but he throws good parties. You've got to have an act, though."

"I'm sorry, I—"

"Barry Stunkard does a Halloween party in the rec room of his dorm," Trish explained, "and everyone has to have an act of some kind, and there's a prize. And if you don't have an act, he makes one up for you."

Now that was a dangerous thought. Better get out of this one before she was in. "I haven't been invited," she offered.

"Everybody's invited," said Mars.

"Besides," she added, "I don't have an act."

"You can be a part of ours."

"We have an act?" Trish put both her beers down and looked up.

"Sure," said Mars, but the tone of her voice didn't wash.

"And I don't have a Halloween costume." AJ protested, but it was a weak protest, and she could feel herself losing ground quickly.

"No problem. I can take care of that, too."

Just then, a new group of people came in and made straight for Mars. There was a lot of laughing and congratulating, and AJ was able to pull back into the booth and pretend to finish her beer.

 

The music came on suddenly. It had been so noisy with voices that she hadn't noticed when it had stopped. People all over the room were up and dancing—to the music or completely oblivious to it. It didn't matter. AJ pushed back farther in the booth, hoping no one would ask her to dance. No one did. All at once, she felt homesick. She wanted to be back at the Cape. She wanted to be back in high school. She wanted to be back in the gym, dancing with— And as soon as she saw an opening, she slipped an arm through one of her knapsack straps and stood up.

"Where you going?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Trish," she said, stepping back far enough away from the others to be out of notice. "I've got to get going."

"Why? We just got here."

"Oh, I know, but I've got homework to do—that history assignment."

Trish walked her out, stopping just outside on the street. "You're very smart, aren't you?"

The gears were whirling in Trish's head; AJ could almost hear them clicking. "Well, I do all right."

"Oh, I can tell you are," she insisted. "You're smart." She was quiet for a moment, the bounce gone out of her a little bit. The look in her eyes said it all. "Could you help me with history?"

"Trish, I…"

"Please? Oh, c'mon."

"It's not that. You know, I'm not real good in history, Trish. I can't remember dates."

"But Gill says we don't have to remember dates. We have to understand why things happened. You're good at that. You can figure things out—like that Adam Wiener. I can tell."

She didn't want to help anybody. She didn't want to hang around with a noisy group and be part of their scams. She didn't want to get involved with anybody and used to having them around. She just wanted to go home and be left alone.

A hot breeze picked up a stray leaf in the gutter and tumbled it onto the sidewalk. The trees were heavy with leaves, glossy and green. They hadn't started to turn yet, but this one had fallen, and now it lay dead and brown on the sidewalk while the others held tight to the tree and waved bravely in the wind.

She couldn't hide out forever. If she didn't stop this, if she didn't stop pulling away from people, if she stopped wanting to have any fun, she wasn't going to make any friends here at all. She was going to dry up and blow away and no one would notice. "All right, if you think it would help."

"Startling!" Trish nearly bounced into the street. "We can get together tomorrow and we can do the whole history of the world together!"

AJ nodded and watched Trish go back inside Schatzi's. When she opened the door, the music and the laughing and the food smells seemed a million light years away, another world.

She slipped her other arm through the other strap and centered her knapsack on her back. She walked a little way up Michigan Avenue and crossed in front of the Shrine. She reached her building and went up to her apartment and once there she went to her bedroom and climbed into her bed. She would feel sorry for herself just a little while longer.

 

Chapter 4

 

When she got back to her apartment from the day's classes, the phone was ringing. She threw her knapsack on the sofa and grabbed up the handset. "Hello, Daddy."

There was a silence at the other end, and then: "Now, how did you know it was me?"

Because its always you, Daddy. "I've got ESP," she told him.

"Are you getting fresh with me, young lady?" he asked. "You're not too big to spank, you know."

She could see his laughing eyes without vid. "You'll have to catch me first," she reminded him, piling some books on the floor and sitting down.

She listened through all the family gossip – what little there was of it in the short time since they had last spoken – and gave him a report, edited of course, of how she was doing in her classes. Then she had to make all of her promises again—to be home by dark, to call if she needed money, and not to get involved with questionable people.

"Do you need any money, AJ?"

"No, Daddy. Not after I checked my balance this morning." She sighed all the way down to her toes. "Daddy, you've got to stop making these little 'deposits' for me. If you don't stop—" she thought of a threat—"l'll change my account number."

"Okay, honey."

And it was no good because her father was paying her rent. He didn't want her living any "wild dorm life" away from home; instead, she had her own apartment where she could import it in at all hours unsupervised.

Then, the dreaded question: "Did you go to Mass yesterday, honey?"

"I didn't have time."

"Amanda Jaquith."

"I had to go grocery shopping. I'll go tomorrow."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Daddy, I'm sure." And then the silence. She could imagine him sitting there, staring at a blank phone because she didn't have vid, trying to lean in to the screen to see her.

"So," he said with false nonchalance, "when you coming home to see your old dad?"

She took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. "I'll be there Thanksgiving," she told him.

"I thought you were coming up the night before?"

"That's what I mean, Daddy." Every time he called it was the same thing.

"Ellen Bosch was out on the beach today with her dog. Poor old thing was sniffing around the kitchen door looking for AJ to give him his cookie."

"You could give him his cookie, Daddy."

"Oh, I did. I did that."

Silence.

"But it's hard to explain to a dog why his friend isn't there."

Oh, no.

"You know what he did, the poor ol' fella?"

She was afraid to ask.

"He found his old tennis ball and sat there by the door wagging his tail—"

Well, that was it. The old waterworks still functioned. "Oh, Daddy, please don't tell me that. I can't come home this weekend."

Or any weekend. Until Thanksgiving. She was going to keep to her vow not to go running home to Daddy until the break, and that was that.

"I miss you, baby."

Oh...Daddy. "I miss you, too," she told him, getting up from the sofa. "But I gotta go."

She hated cutting him off like this, but if she didn't, he'd have her blubbering all the way to the airport.

"Well… you take care of yourself, honey," he said quietly. "And you just call if you need anything, or...if you don't…okay?"

"Sure, Daddy." She wished he'd get out more, stop hanging around down there on the island and move into Boston or somewhere, especially during the winter. The summer people might be a royal pain sometimes, but when they were gone, and the winds came up, the beach could be a desolate place. "Oh, uh, Daddy."

"Yeah, honey?"

"You didn't hear anything from Marty, did you? Through his mother, I mean?"

"No, honey."

And that's all he said. That's all there was to say.

"I gotta go, Daddy."

"Yeah. Well, you take care of yourself," he said again. "Your ol' dad loves you, you know."

"I know, Daddy. I love you, too." She got off and went into the kitchen to make tea. The hard bench in the breakfast nook felt good all of a sudden, and she drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them, letting the tears come. Damn that dog and his tennis ball.

 

It seemed as if she'd just gotten off with Daddy when the phone rang again. "Yes? Hello?"

"Hi! It's me, Trish!"

AJ rolled back onto her back and balanced the set on her stomach. "What's going on?" she asked.

"You coming to the mixer?"

"What mixer?"

"The one over near Monroe Hall, on the Nature Strip. You coming?"

AJ shifted the pillow behind her neck. "I don't know. I'm lying down. I'm kind of tired."

"They're having live bands!" Trish's voice shot out of the phone and bounced off the ceiling, " and they're featuring Dead Elvis!"

They were a local group and AJ already had two of their tapes. "I'm just going to lie here for a little while longer," she said finally. "I've got a headache."

"You want me to come over?"

"No, that's all right. I'll get up in a little while and come over."

"Sure?"

"I'll meet you there."

She put the phone back on the table and curled up on her side with her pillows. One of her books fell on the floor and she left it there.

She woke nearly an hour later feeling puffy and overheated. It took five minutes to drag herself into the bathroom and five minutes to wake up. She ducked into the shower for a minute, and by the time she was dressed, she felt better, if still a little creaky. She tucked her wallet into her pocket and left her knapsack in her apartment. She didn't want to drag that all over tonight.

She could hear the music the minute she opened the door to the hall. The window near the stairs vibrated lightly when she put her fingers to it, booming with the pulse of the beat. Out on the sidewalk, the air seemed to pulse with the beat, making her head feel worse, but she was so tired of lying in bed she kept walking.

Out on the street, the air was still except for the wafts blown up by cars passing on Michigan Avenue. It was one of the few driving streets around, and sometimes at night, if the window near the stairs was open, the rush reminded her sometimes of the surf when she stood in the hall. By the time she passed the back of Gibbons Hall, she could feel the thump of the music at the mixer but she couldn't make out what they were playing until she was near the bridge.

She could smell the mixer before she could see it: undiluted beer and grilling hot dogs and suntan lotion. The summer never ends here, she thought. Halloween would come and it would be too hot for mulled cider.

An old stairway led down to the nature strip; AJ stood back to let people pass and watched from the top. It had been the underpass for a railroad route, one of the Catholic U brochures had read, but now the plantings and walkways and bike and buzzboard paths stretched south to downtown DC and north to Baltimore. Daddy had always liked railroad trains, and he'd tried to explain to her what they had been like, but she hadn't been able to picture them.

Four students came charging up the steps past her and shot across the bridge, barely missing being hit by a car. Two girls and a boy waited on the other side until the driver swore at the first group and drove on, then made their way across and down to the nature strip. They had Billibeanburger glasses in their hands and the remains of burgers. She hadn't known there was a Billi's around here.

She watched the group go down the steps onto the grass and slowly fade their way into the crowd below. The nature strip was a river of dancing figures, swaying and stomping and flowing out from under the bridge past the band and into the late summer haze. At the Cape, the summer would have passed by this time into an early autumn of clear skies and cool nights.

She wasn't at the Cape; she was in Brookland. The air was heavy with moisture, promising a cool dip in the ocean but delivering nothing but a hot, sticky breath.

AJ had to move out of the way to let another couple of students pass her. She leaned against the railing and closed her eyes. The walk from her apartment and up to the bridge had made her legs ache again right down to the tops of her knees. Just standing up there she was getting overheated again, she should have worn shorts.

AJ stood on the hill looking down at the bright spots of color swaying and stomping in the summer haze, her stomach taking the beat of the music in hard punches, the smells and the heat adding to the vague feeling of nausea she felt, and turned the other way.

Halfway home she thought she was going to fall over if she didn't get in out of the heat. She'd left her notebook back at the apartment, but she was sure Mullen would still be open. AJ wandered into the building, riding the elevators and reading the bulletin boards. She was angry. And hurt. And feeling completely sorry for herself.

The A/C was on full; Mullen was almost too cool for short sleeves. She was so bloated that she had trouble digging her transaction card out of the pocket of her knickers. Maybe she'd just find a book or two to take back.

AJ had wandered around the third floor for nearly half an hour before she realized she was just wandering around. She caught her reflection in one of the display cases. She slouched and made a face at her reflection in the plastic doors. Maybe if she were taller, more…voluptuous, blonde. She'd look just like Trish. Maybe she should wear sexier clothes, dress older.

No. She was the height of college fashion. Trish wore the same things that she wore, only on her, it was sexy. On AJ—she looked like death warmed over. She looked like a war refugee. A 20th century war refugee. A 12-year-old, 20th Century war refugee. A 12-year-old male 20th Century war refugee. She turned sideways. Maybe a pair of socks strategically placed.

Her vision adjusted from close to far. There was someone watching her in the glass.

He waited. He didn't get up, he didn't go back to work, he didn't say anything.

"Oh, hello again." The man with the biophysics journals. "What are you doing here?"

He blinked. After a long pause, he said, "I am… working."

"Oh, I mean, what are you doing here at Catholic U? Are you a visiting professor? Physics, right? What section?" Not hers, for one. No one would come all this way out from Vulcan to teach Physics for the Scientifically Inept.

"Your... government make… arrange for most near…academic libraries… to be of avail."

AJ pulled out the chair opposite and slid into it. "I wondered what you were doing here the other day. I figured that you were a professor."

If you didn't notice he was Vulcan, he would have stood out by his clothes alone: obviously custom-made and not a rumple in them, not a hair out of place. A slate sat on the table in front of him at an odd angle, the stylus set carefully across the top.

"Are you here for the whole semester, or are you just a guest lecturer?" Maybe Catholic U was only one of a number of colleges he was visiting on Earth. "Are you in 'Special Topics,' or are you teaching a regular class?" She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward to take the pressure off her lower back. "I'm in physics now," she went on. "I'm lousy in it. I took it last semester in Cambridge, and I failed it." She leaned forward a little more, "I'm not doing terribly well in it now. You'd think I'd do better the second time around. Well, at least, when I make mistakes now, they seem familiar."

He started to say something, then stopped. He glanced slightly to one side and his mouth tightened.

"I'm sorry," she said, pushing her chair back. There was a sudden intensity in him, or perhaps she hadn't noticed it before because she'd been babbling on. "You're working. I'm bothering you. I'll go." She started to stand.

"No."

She stopped halfway out of the chair, her behind up in the air. She looked at his tightened lips, his slightly extended hand.

"No," he said again, just as quietly, less a command. "You," he said, his hand still raised a hair from the tabletop, "you... no bother." He had a soft voice, but his words came out in clumps, rough and hesitant. "You are no bother."

AJ sat back down. The impatience was directed at himself, not at her. His face was as smooth as only self-control could make it. "You don't speak much English, do you?"

He didn't answer right away.

"I'm so sorry. Here I was, babbling on. I thought you only had trouble pronouncing words. When I heard you talk to the student aide the other day—" And what had she actually heard? Where is theoretical biophysics journals? He'd probably had the "where is?" memorized along with half-a-dozen other phrases to get him by when he couldn't access Infolinx. 

"I hear," he put an index finger to a temple, "I understand."

"Are you saying that you understand most of what people say to you in English, but you have trouble answering them?"

"Yes."

Oh, thank God! At least she hadn't spent five minutes talking to a stone. "I didn't mean to run on like that and not give you a chance to say something."

Relief? His face never changed, but his shoulders went down a little.

She waited. There went the shoulders again.

"I have… difficult… your language – with your language."

And nobody here gives you the time to get your words out, do they? "That's all right. I'm not going anywhere. Believe me. I have all the time in the world. My name is AJ."

"'Eh-Jhey'?"

"AJ," she repeated, trying to emphasize the sounds as much as possible. There wasn't much to work with.

"'Ay-Jhey', " he said it again with the long 'A's,' but the French-sounding 'J' stayed with it.

"That's right," she said. She smiled at him. No reaction." And yours?"

"Sarek."

"Sahr-wreck," she repeated, feeling that there was a catch in there she wasn't quite getting.

"Is close...enough."

"So… what brings you to our lovely world?"

"'Lovely world'?"

"Why have you come to Earth, Sarek?" She watched his eyes. Already, she could tell when he understood and was only looking for the right words or when he was completely uncomprehending. "What is your purpose here?"

"'Purpose. " He paused for a moment or two, gathering words. "I have come to Earth to study. Exchange studies of scientific."

Carefully, she repeated what she thought he meant but in proper form, "You came to Earth to study and to exchange scientific information."

He nodded.

"What did you come to Earth to study, Sarek?"

"Biophysics."

That came easily enough.

"You study, AJ?"

"'Psychology,'" she said. If she could remember to use complete sentences, it might just help him to understand and encode better.

"Sigh-call-uh-gee."

Another nod, although she had an idea that he hadn't a clue to what she meant, "I study psychology, you study biophysics."

"I study biophysics. You study 'sigh-call-uh-gee.'"

"That's right, Sarek. Psychology."

"This field is unknown to me."

She tapped her right temple. "It's the study of the mind."

His eyes opened wider. He actually seemed surprised. "You are mental master?"

"A master?" She felt complimented, "Oh, no, Sarek. I'm an undergraduate student."

He had intelligent, questing eyes. He pushed the slate across the table toward her. "Write," he said. "You write." When she hesitated, he said, "'Sigh-call-uh-gee.' 'Unn-duh-gratch… gratchoo… gratcher."

"'Undergraduate," she prodded, "Will this translate for you, too?" She remembered the text reader he'd had with him the other day. She didn't see it now.

"Yes," he replied. "You write 'sigh-call-uh-gee'."

She made an attempt to print neatly on the screen. "Actually, I'm studying developmental psychology."

"'Dee-vell-uh-mennell.'"

"I study the way people learn things, the way they behave."

"Emotions."

She could feel the barest slip in his voice. Distain was it? "Oh. That's right. You're not supposed to have any."

"Is true." he pulled back. Had no one ever questioned him before?

"If you say so, " she shrugged her shoulders, assuming a air of someone who had just been handed a whopper of a fish tale.

"I do," he asserted as AJ shook her head. "You doubt my word?"

"No. I don't doubt your word. I just think you're wrong. All sentient beings need to feel some type of emotion. It's all tied up with the chemicals in your nervous system, not something you can just bypass."

"I am not wrong."

AJ looked at him and laughed, "Oh? You're very arrogant, aren't you? Are all Vulcans this arrogant, or is it just you?

He looked confused, "Arrow gint?"

"Arrogant. Here," she took the stylus from him and wrote it out on his slate, "A-R-R-O-G-A-N-T. Arrogant. "

Sarek looked at the word, then looked sideways at her, putting his translator to it. His eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as the word translated, causing her to laugh even more. So much for no emotion. It was suppressed, but it was surely there. She watched as he swept the stylus across the page in a single elegant movement, a letter? He paused for a moment.

"You are… impertinent."

"Impertinent? Oh, I love it! Oh, you are arrogant!" She laughed again, then realized just how confusing her reaction was to him. She didn't want to hurt those non-existent emotions. And here he was, even more of a stranger in this town than she would ever be, "Oh, Sarek, you know, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself when I came in here tonight, but now – well, things are in perspective. I think we both needed to have something deflated here, your arrogance and my self-pity."

A tone came over the speaker system announcing ten minutes until closing. Had she really been here that long? "I've really enjoyed talking with you. You just practice a little more—you've already improved some tonight." she had enjoyed the conversation and hoped that he had come out of it with whatever he might be willing to admit as enjoyment as well. "I needed a friend tonight. Thanks for talking with me."

She turned once before she left the room to see him framed in the soft library lights, watching as she left, a trace of confusion still echoing in the deep-set eyes.

 

 

Chapter 5

Outside there was a faint promise of autumn chill in the warm air.

"Hey, Trish," Mars Fulton shouted across the green as they were making their way to class, "Arthur's going up to the mountains if you still want to go."

"When?"

"Saturday. Eight a.m. in the VIP parking lot."

"Tell him, yes!"

"You got it," she said, and was gone in a flame of red hair.

"What's up in the mountains?" AJ asked.

"There's a whole little town just like before the Big Shake with the sweetest little stores!" gushed Trish. "I'm looking for something to wear to the Humanities Halloween party."

"But how about the one you have for the other party?"

"AJ", she said a little shocked, "I can't wear the same costume to two different parties, what will people say?"

She had an answer for that, but held her tongue, "There's nothing you can get down here?"

"Oh, everything's vintage up there. You know, pre-Big Shake. Vintage furniture, vintage clothes, vintage books—"

"Vintage? What do you mean by 'vintage'?"

"Up in the country. At an antique place. They have furniture, clothes, books—"

 

"Books?" AJ was paying attention now, "what kind of books?"

"You know. The old printed kind."

"Printed on paper?"

"Right. There's a whole store of them."

"Trish, do you think…?" AJ hated to ask to tag along when the driver was someone she didn't even know, but the allure of finding books!

"AJ, Arthur won't mind as long as you help him load the truck; he's happy for the company. But you have to get over this book fixation and start thinking about more important things."

"Such as?" AJ sighed, knowing the answer would lead to her social life or what Trish saw was a lack thereof.

Suddenly, Trish clamped a hand on her arm, "Oh, god, AJ! It's Barry Stunkard!"

A group of boys were headed their way. Trish began to rhapsodize, "He can sing, he can dance, he can act, he can—"

"—eat with a spoon."

Trish made her wait until the guys caught up with them. The infamous Barry Stunkard was about four or five inches taller than AJ was, making him slightly shorter than Trish but beautifully tanned, and wearing his remarkably blonde, slightly wavy hair like something she'd only seen on the splash page of a surfing magazine. When he smiled at her, AJ was nearly blinded.

Trish apparently was. "Hi, Barry!"

"Hey, Trish," he said. The boy's eyes never went above the neckline of her tennis top. "Who's your little friend?"

"Who?"

"That would be me," said AJ as Trish introduced her around.

"AJ's transferred down from Harvard," she offered.

Barry nodded solemnly, sidling up to her and slipping an arm around her shoulders. "Well let me be one of the first to formally welcome you to Catholic University, soon-to-be-known as the alma mater of the multitalented Barry Stunkard—or whatever I change my name to when I go professional."

"Well, thank you," said AJ, "whoever you are." Whoever you think you are!

He turned the most startling pair of blue eyes on her and smiled. "You're one of these XLR8 kids?" he said. "What are you, about fifteen?"

Not this again.

"If you really think I'm only fifteen years old," she said, "why do you, a college student, have your arm around me?"

"Maybe I like 'em young," he said.

"And maybe I like 'em taller."

AJ saw the kiss coming before it left his eyes. She stamped down hard on one of his latest-fashion Starfleet-style boots.

"Dammit, woman!"

"I may be small," she told him, putting some distance between them, "but my feet are big for my size."

A series of yeows! from the boys while Barry brushed the dust from the toe of his boot.

The chimes from the tower began to strike the hour. The guys were all in some gym class together and had to run to get there on time.

"I got my eye on you, kiddie-bumps," Barry said with a wink, then sprinted after his friends.

"I got both my eyes on you, tiny-toes," she called back.

"I think Barry likes you!" Trish gushed.

"Oh, please, Trish! Don't wish that on me!"

"He is kind of cute."

"He is," said AJ as they entered Gill's class, "in a 'Hitler Youth' sort of way."

 

It seemed that Saturday couldn't get here soon enough. AJ was up at the crack of dawn, partitioning her money into the 'can spend' money and that hidden stash for the emergency book of her dreams. Shouldering her knapsack, she took off across campus.

Parked across two spaces in the empty VIP parking lot was a big, green farm truck with mud splattered on the back left wheel and the tailgate dropped down. A pair of work boots that looked like they'd actually seen some stuck out from under it at the ends of well-worn jeans.

AJ walked over and stood near the back of the truck. There was no sign of Trish. "Anything wrong?" she asked.

Something thunked painfully on the underside of the truck and a big voice boomed: "Lord-love-a-duck!"

The work boots started to move. AJ got out of the way.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Depends," came the voice. "You with the campus police?"

"No. I'm not."

"Then I'm okay," he began the backward, feet-first scoot from under the truck.

"Is there anything wrong with it?"

"Just checking the spare."

Finally a large pair of hands came up to grip the edge of the tailgate from underneath and a large man pulled himself the rest of the way out.

"You don't even look like the parking police," he said, squinting in the sunlight, "You look more like somebody named 'A. J. Grayson'."

"Oh, really?"

"Yep. 'Short, cute, curly hair.' That about does it, don't you think?"

He stood up like a mountain rising from the earth. Longish hair and full, neatly trimmed beard, Arthur Byrnes towered over AJ like a big cinnamon bear. A big,  
friendly cinnamon bear. AJ liked him immediately.

"'Grayson,' is it? What's the 'A. J.' for?"

"If you promise not to use it, I'll tell you."

"Cross my heart," he said, and did.

"It stands for 'Amanda Jaquith'."

He gave her a funny look.

"I know. It's 'a big name for a little girl'. I hear it all the time."

Arthur nodded, a little distracted as if he were trying to remember something.

"And if you try to call me 'Amanda' or, God help you, something insipid like 'Mandy,' I'll have to punch your lights out."

He didn't say anything to that.

"How tall are you, Arthur?"

"Six-five."

"Okay," she said, nodding, "I think I can take you." She put up her fists.

 

Finally, his blue eyes flashed and he had a great laugh. Across the way a bleary-eyed Trish finally was making her way, a cup of coffee in each hand, alternating between sips. Obviously, any conversation would be limited to her and Arthur on the trip out. 

 

"Trish tells me you grew up on Stella Maris, but I told her she was full of it," Arthur laughed, "Nobody's a Stella Marian."

"Why not?"

"No one is actually born there."

"I was."

"They say it used to be a big resort before the swamping. It still pretty unpopulated?"

"Pretty much."

"Were your people originally from there?" Arthur asked.

"No, actually, my father inherited the lot from his father who inherited it from his father who, so the story goes, got it in some shady land-grab after the Big Shake. My parents built the house there—just a little cottage, really."

"You said your mom died when you were young. Was it just you and your dad?"

"You aren't going to feel sorry for me, are you?"

 

Arthur glanced sideways, masking a grin. "I wouldn't dare."

They both laughed.

"What was your dad's name?"

"Reese Grayson."

"Reese? That a family name?"

"No, actually. He hated his real name so he changed it when he and my mother were married. It was 'Antares'. The Third, if you can believe it."

He nodded. "Family didn't happen to be in interstellar trade, did they?"

"Yes," she laughed, "how did you know?"

"That's what they did in those days," he said. "Everybody's got some ancestor named after a star or constellation back in the interstellar trade days. My family was as well."

"And the name in your closet?"

"Mine was 'Camelopardalis'."

Their laugh finally woke Trish up, and they had to look then for a rest stop. Too many cups of coffee.

 

The air temperature and humidity was so perfect the weather was invisible. The only thing was the brisk wind. The road was lined with small shops, some in old storefronts, some in the first and second stories of old houses. Behind the right row of stores, the mountains rose up like a bed of soft, glowing undersea coral.

AJ and Trish helped Kevin unload the truck.

"What's this?" AJ went to poke her in the ribs but she had moved.

"Take a look," Kevin told them.

Trish popped open one of the squishy plastic bags and reached in, "It's beautiful!"

AJ touched the puffy quilt. The colors were all blues and plums. "What are you doing with these?" There were four big, soft plastic bags in the truck bed. She was dying to look in them.

"Selling them," said Kevin, "hopefully, for enough to buy some furniture."

She and Trish took them ahead to the crafts store and lay them on the counter. There was another one in plums and blues but in a different pattern, a quilt in warmer blues, and one designed with big blocks of narrow rectangles spiraling out around small squares of red-all in rusty fall colors. Gorgeous!

AJ stepped back when Kevin came in to bargain with the owner of the shop. She snagged Trish by the belt and pulled her out of the way so Kevin and the woman could haggle in private.

"Look at his over here, Trish."

Trish liked the soft-sculptured dolls. She picked up every one of them out of doll chairs and cradles and played with them.

"Did you see how much these things cost?"

"I've been looking."

She had. Especially the quilts. She couldn't help overhearing the numbers being discussed, and it was very clear to AJ what a superb profit this store was making.

 

"Do you make those quilts yourself?" 

Trish had spotted her vintage clothing shop, leaving AJ and Arthur to load us the truck with his necessities, so that the rest of the day would be at leisure.

"My wife mostly—I mean, she does all of the hard stuff—designing, cutting, piecing. We get a lot more done in the winter. There's not much to do up there on long weekends."

"They're beautiful," she said again. Her face must have shown what she was thinking.

"They're the only store that doesn't do just consignment," he said over his shoulder, "And you can't always wait for the tourists to do their Christmas shopping."

"You really like living on a farm, out miles from nowhere?"

Arthur shook his head, "Most people think we're crazy."

"No, I don't thing you're crazy at all," she pulled on leg up on the tailgate," I don't know if I could do it, living on a farm and raising my own food, but I'm glad someone's doing it. If we ever had to go back to it, someone would need to know how to manufacture necessities from the source material." She was sounding like a textbook. Arthur was smiling a crooked smile. "And even if we never had to go back to that way of living, I think someone should still know."

"Why?" Arthur stood in the back of the truck, a heavy feed sack in his arms, a challenging expression on his face. If he would just shift his eyes to the horizon, someone could paint him in that pose as The American Farmer.

"For whatever reason you're doing it," she told him.

He grimaced.

"Which must be a good and lofty reason or you'd be living over on North Capitol Street in Graduate Housing like all the other lecturers."

He shook his head at her and turned away to put the sack down. Was he really disappointed in her answer, or was it just his way?

"I know why I would do it," she continued.

He stopped, bent over, hands on the top sack, and peered back at her from under his left arm, "Yeah?"

She sighed, a distant light in her eyes. "I think to put your hands on things yourself, to see it yourself, to know it all yourself—to put your hands to it." 

"AJ Grayson," he suddenly stood to his full height and the voice boomed with laughter, "I think you've got a real future ahead of you, girl!

 

Wandering through the furniture stores, AJ tried to stay out of the way and not act bored. Some of the furniture was very grand and quite beautiful, but it was no used getting your heart set on something you could never have.

The sunlight slanted on the buildings and the street. The summer heart was gone today, but a dry haze spread out over the fields at the end of the lot, and some of the trees seemed less green than they were back at school, as if they were just ready to turn the first cool day. It was the first of October, but the summer held on.

She was sleepy, the early morning having finally gotten to her. The air out in the field was shimmering behind the abandoned tractor and the dust seemed to rise. She got down off the barrel and rubbed her eyes. Across the open lot she noticed a sign in a window on the side of the building. She grabbed her knapsack.

Oh, this was wonderful! A man at the front smiled at her as she came in. "Looking for something special?"

"No. Just browsing."

This was wonderful! There were stairs leading up to another whole floor of books!

Were the prices marked? Yes. That was good and bad. Maybe she could get a knockdown at the counter. This place was a gold mine!

She formed two piles—no, three: one for definitely yes, one for definitely no, one for maybe. No—four. Maybe yes and maybe if I've got any money left.

The paper was real in some of the books; pages caught against the ones around them and rattled when she peeled them free. The air blew in her face when she fanned then, and she could smell the ghosts of ancient trees.

"Need any help back there?"

The man from the front of the store stood at the far end of between the ceiling-high shelves of books. Suddenly, she was aware of there were other people in the shop; she remembered now that four different people had had to step over her and her piles of books on the floor.

"Could you tell me what time it is?"

"Sure. It's just about 3:30," he said before moving on to the next row to check on the people there.

This was it. She gathered up her yeses and yes-maybes and carted them up to the front of the store.

The man came up and smiled. "Looks like you found something."

The pile looked smaller on the counter.

The man ran a finger down the column of spines. "We have some of these taped."

"Oh, no, I like paper books."

He nodded. "They're getting harder and harder to come by these days."

Uh-oh. Was that the sound of a knockdown squeaking away? She went to pull out her wallet. Where was it, with as little to-do as possible, she started to pull out the contents of her knapsack, to no avail.

A little awkward smile. " I think I left my wallet in the truck. I'll be right back." She was off in a streak.

Outside on the street, the slant of the sun was sharper; the air was golden with it. The sound of her shoes on the gravel was sharper, too, and there was a fresh breeze blowing. She found Arthur at an outside stall, was haggling over the prices on a piece of antique furniture that AJ could only guess the original use for, borrowing the truck keys. Trish had disappeared into one of the shops that sold "natural cosmetics". Looking for a shortcut back to the lot, AJ wandered back through a small passageway between two buildings and found herself at the edge of a grassy field. It was like turning a corner and finding herself in another world.

Tall grass, golden like wheat, rippled before the wind. The breeze was like silk on her skin, in the low autumn sun she felt like she was standing in gold, smelling the crackling gold, hearing the chirp of golden insects, feeling the golden warmth of the breeze, watching the sunlight turn everything to it.

The year had gotten older along with the sunlight: the grapefruit light of early spring, the lemon light of summer suddenly giving way to the orange-tinged light of late summer and the tangerine of autumn. Then, just as suddenly, Halloween would come and go, and the light would fade fast, go cold, and go brown. Then grey, then bright white until, again, the gold would creep back in the lemon sun of another spring.

Something flashed gilt in the low sun. AJ headed in the direction of the gently thrashing trees, the grass szzing around her in the wind as she walked. The sun was warming out in the middle of the field, or the breeze was weaker because now she could feel the sun as well as see it.

How quiet is was here! Crickets, an occasional cicada, the dusty scrape of a falling leaf skidding across a brick walk, all underscored by the sighing of the wind. Here and there, a bird chirped, a voice called out, a door banged shut, but—that was it. The eternal underscoring of the surf was missing. She moved toward the glint.

 

On the other side of the field, and open-air flea market had been set up. She tried to orient herself, looking for the direction of the parked truck. Then she saw the bed frame that had beckoned her across the field, sparkling in the sun.

"Hi?"

The man turned around and looked at her, only it wasn't a man, it was a tall, lean woman in a jogging suit.

 

AJ shaded her eyes against the sun. "Is this for sale?" AJ didn't wait for an answer. She ran her hands over the brass and poked at one of the turnings. "DecoPlast?"

"Marble."

"Real marble?"

It was too good.

 

"AJ!" Trish had found her and was shouting across the lot, making her way to where she stood transfixed.

Trish was standing next to the tailgate, shaking her head. "God, that's awful!"

"No, it's not."

It really wasn't. All the brass had a—well…non-brassy look to it. The midday sun lit up more silver than white, and the turnings were absolutely pearly in the sun.

"Is it a queen or a king?"

The headboard and footboard were wraparound style and taller than she was, but standing up together, leaning against the truck, AJ couldn't guess the size the mattress would have to be.

"It's bigger than any of the kings," the woman told her. "It's an Empire."

"They don't make those any more."

"You're not going to buy that, are you?"

"Come here—" AJ grabbed Trish by the arm. "Excuse us," she told the woman. She hauled Trish over to the broken barrel. "How much money do you have?"

"What do you mean? In the bank, or with me?"

"Of course with you."

After returning to Arthur's truck to retrieve the missing wallet, they came up with the huge sum of forth-nine dollars and some odd change.

She looked back at the woman. They were too far away for her to hear what they were saying, but she was watching them.

"I don't think she's going to take any transfers. But maybe she'll take a down payment or a deposit."

The woman was looking at her watch. Then, as if not trusting the technology, looked at the sky for assurance.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Her hand closed tight around the money and she tried to smile and be firm at the same time. "How much are you asking for this bed?"

"How much will you give me?"

She hadn't expected that. "Why…certainly you have some idea what you'd like for it."

"No."

Oh, for God's sake! She didn't want to play silly games she wanted some number to bargain with. Oh, all right. "I'll give you ten dollars for it," she said, and waited for a laugh.

No laugh.

"I don't think that's a fair price," the woman told her flatly.

Well, I know that.

New, the bed should have been worth more than a couple thousand dollars. Even used, it was worth something—probably too much for her to afford, but at least with some sort of bargaining price, she might have some sort of chance, especially if the woman just wanted to clean out her attic. "Will you take a transfer?"

The woman shook her head. "I can only take cash."

This was more than aggravating. The woman didn't look her straight in the eye; instead, she watched from the corner of hers, glancing frequently at the sky the way most people glance at a watch.

"I'm sorry," AJ said, closing her hand tight over the bills. "I guess I'm just taking up your time."

She backed away a step or two, and the woman looked down quickly. "It's late," she said quietly. "I can't bring the bed back with me. Say a price."

Oh, for God's sake.

"All right," AJ said. "Forty-nine dollars."

It was all she had and the woman wasn't going to go for it anyway—

"Yes. Forty-nine dollars. Cash."

She couldn't believe it. The woman held out a long-fingered, surprisingly un-calloused hand and waited. Okay.

The woman counted the bills quickly and tucked them into a pocket. She nodded and gestured to the bed. "I have to leave."

"Oh, sorry. Trish?"

They moved the head- and footboards from where they were leaning against the truck and then went back for the frame struggling between them. Then Trish took off to find Arthur. AJ thanked the woman, was given a formal "your welcome," and looking once more at the sky, the woman got into the truck and drove off.

 

On the way home, Trish did nothing but talk. "Who are you getting to inaugurate it with—that's what I'd like to know."

Oh, for God's sake.

Arthur laughed, leaving the conversation to the two of them. It was amusement enough.

"Nobody."

"Huh?"

"You heard me." AJ sighed. "I'm sleeping in the bed by myself. The first night I get this bed set up, do you know what I'm going to do?"

"Lure one of the CU stallions up for a ride?"

A choking sound from Arthur's direction.

Oh, for God's sake.

"Oh, all right, Trish. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to come home and make the most wonderful dinner—wine, candles, the most decadent dessert—and while it's cooking, I'm going to draw the most delicious bubble bath—almost too hot to stand it—and just lie there in it with a glass of wine and two candles burning—pink ones—one at either side of the far end of the tub."

"Then?"

"Then what?"

"Oh...I don't know."

"Then what?"

Trish grabbed her elbow and pinched.

"Oh, stop it, Trish."

"Well, then what?"

"We'd have dinner, of course. By candlelight, of course, everything would be perfect."

"With who ?"

AJ gave Trish the corner of her eye. Oh, she was a naughty, little girl! "After dinner," she went on, "we'd come back here to the bedroom and just..."

"What?"

"Oh… you know… just admire the bed for awhile—the brass, the marble—of course, I'd have a brand-new bedspread, and everything would match."

"Right. Everything matches."

"Of course, I'd be wearing my most astounding negligee. Black. Or—no, red. Red is prettier. We'd put on some romantic music, and then we'd curl up together in bed and…"

"What? Who are you going to get up here?" Trish nearly stood in the middle of the floor and jumped up and down.

"Would you like me to show you?"

"Where? You've got a picture?"

"Oh, much better than that, Trish. The real thing." And before Trish could blurt out a huh? AJ had reached into the knapsack and pulled it out.

"What… that's a book."

"That's right, Trish. A book."

Arthur didn't stop laughing until they got home.

 

Chapter 6

 

Professor Gill sat on the edge of his console table and looked them over. AJ always sat near the front, but not in the first row, and slightly off-center, to the left, because most live instructors played to the right. Out of the line of fire, but not out of sight.

He smiled, threw a leg over the corner of the table, glanced at his class roster, then said, "The greatest minds in history. Who were they?"

Based on what criteria? The greatest scientific mind? The greatest artist?

"Yeah. Wiener."

"Proust."

"Good. Who else?"

Silence. He began to consult his roster again. Better think of someone.

The names went by: Cochrane, Einstein—

 

"Lauren Cashman."

"Good! We're not forgetting the current. Ah… Patrick MacLeod?"

There was a pattern developing—or a lack of an obvious one, which meant the same thing.

"George Savanick? We haven't heard from you yet."

"Uh… Smithsonian?"

"Who?"

"You know. The guy with the museum."

"You mean 'James Smithson'?" Charles Wiener piped up. He had dark hair and a snippy tone. Probably very bright.

"Yeah. Yeah, they named the Smithsonian after him."

Here it comes.

"They named the institution after him because he willed the money to start it."

Uh-oh.

"Amanda Grayson?"

"'AJ'. What about Jung or Hapgood?"

"No Freud?"

"Not if I can help it, Professor?"

That got a laugh, even from the professor.

The room quieted. No volunteers, no being called on.

"Is that all?"

A few people nodded.

"No more great minds?"

Well, if you thought about it, you could probably go on forever. And after the well known, a little research could turn up the brilliant individuals of every discipline who weren't known in the general sphere.

"Amanda—AJ?"

She shook her head. You had to draw a line somewhere.

"How about it, Charlie?"

Uh-oh. She had been put in the same category as the "smart boy".

Charles shrugged.

"Anybody?"

Fidgeting started.

"What about you, Professor?"

He wanted a lead-in; she gave it to him.

"Who would you say was one of the great minds in history?"

"Well," said Professor Gill, "I've always been partial to Hitler."

"Adolph Hitler?"

"That's not funny."

"I didn't mean it to be funny, Mr. Wiener."

Gill swung his leg off the console and activated his terminal. "Take a look at your screens. Notice the time line along the bottom."

She already had. He had things color-coded.

 

"No, you don't understand what Professor Gill is trying to say." AJ was frustrated. She understood Gill's theory, and Charles was certainly smart enough to. What was his problem?

"I understand all right."

"No, you don't," she said patiently.

"Yes, I do!"

"No, you don't. He's saying that the Nazis used efficient methods to rebuild a society that was ravaged by a previous war. He isn't condoning what happened as a result."

"The result?" Charles turned to glare directly at her.

"It was their methods that were barbarous!" She was letting her frustration get the better of her.

"Nobody's arguing that!"

"All right, all right." Gill stepped in, trying to bring the debate to a less emotional level.

"It's not all right!"

If she hadn't been so angry herself at his lack of objectivity, she would have been appalled at his outburst.

"Charles, you're missing the point. The Nazis weren't the first to use these methods, and they won't be the last. And," she said, "unfortunately, the techniques work because most people are looking for someone to whom they can feel superior."

Charles was trying so hard to look at nobody that his head looked almost as if it were sitting on backwards.

"Uh… AJ," the professor said, checking his chart, "would you care to elaborate?"

 

Charles kept right on walking.

"Oh… goddammit!" AJ was just trying to apologize for any misunderstanding. Charles was taking this in entirely the wrong way.

A voice from behind her said, "Whoa! Whoa there, little filly!"

AJ swung around ready to commit mayhem and stopped short of letting go with a string of language she would never have used at home.

"Professor Gill."

"John."

He watched the rapidly retreating figure of Charles Wiener with her, disappearing around the corner of the Shrine, the waited for a little longer before looking back to her.

"He's more than a little riled."

"He's very sensitive," she said.

"Oh. Do you know him?"

"No. Only from class."

He looked as if he didn't believe her.

"Oh, he's that kind," she explained. "Impassioned. Bright, but he talks out of his heart before he gets a chance to think."

"Did you know that Charles' ancestors were victims of that very era?"

"No, I didn't," she admitted. "But Professor, that was hundreds of years ago."

"Yes, but some families, some groups, believe that it's important to remember things like the Nazi terrors so that it can be recognized if it should begin to happen again. It's true that what happened in Europe during that time was unconscionable, and it's true what you said in class that the political group responsible for the atrocities couldn't, on a basic level, be anymore to blame than a child who, having been spanked by a parent, strikes out at the family dog."

AJ stopped dead on the sidewalk.

"Is that how I sounded back there?"

She hadn't meant to put the lives of human beings on par with a naughty child. She'd just been trying to illustrate with a simple analogy. But coming from Professor Gill's lips, it sounded just awful.

"No, no." He smiled at her when he heard her sigh. "I think we all understood what you meant. You were trying to make the point that there are patterns of human behavior, such as the basic tendency to develop things like a 'pecking order,' and that individuals or groups who use that to their own benefit and to the detriment of others aren't creating evil themselves but only taking advantage of a system that already exists."

It didn't matter. The wind had been taken out of her sails. "I know. But I'm afraid that Charles didn't see it that way." She sighed again and started walking. "It was an academic question, really," she protested, and then said quietly, "but I guess it wasn't so academic to him." Now she felt just awful. She hated feeling this way! She hadn't meant to upset Charles, but she had.

"There's an old saying, Ms. Grayson. I'm certain you've heard of it: 'He who will not learn from history is doomed to repeat it'."

But he wasn't learning, she thought, he was dwelling on it, reaching out for something painful as if it were a friend.

"I know it's an old one," the professor was saying, "but it's a true one."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe," she said again, feeling her perspective realigning itself, "Maybe there should be a corollary to that: 'He who will not leave the past behind is doomed to live it forever'." And everyday. She wondered where Charles went after history.

"You're a philosophy major?"

"No, psychology."

"Well, you might consider my course on parallels in Federation history next semester. You might be surprised at the commonality of many events."

"Sounds interesting."

"If it is more than just 'sounds interesting,' you might want to register for it. With any luck, this will be my last semester here. I have an application in to go out with the Constitution when it's commissioned."

"Why would you do that?"

Starfleet? What was it with men and Starfleet? They give it its own branch, build it its own academy, and they all want to go. What could they possibly find out there that they couldn't find right here? Why would they think they would find anything better suited to them than the world that had grown and nurtured them, where they had evolved to inhabit and thrive?

The professor was laughing. "An 'earthling,' huh?"

"Oh, I'm not that bad, am I?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"Well," she began, "I suppose that as a psychology student, I'm interested in the behaviors and thought processes of any species, but I feel that the understanding of our own is a prerequisite to that." You had to have some firm base to start from after all. "I suppose," she continued thoughtfully, "that history, being a finite subject—" Oh, no. Not again. "Now, that's not what I meant—"

"Sure it is." Professor Gill kept walking. "And you're right, Ms. Grayson. The study of history is a finite study. The laboratory is a finite space with a finite number of people in it with a finite amount of resources to go around. When I think about historical events, I think less of the things I can count and more of the possibilities."

"'The Causes and Effects'. I hadn't thought of it that way."

He nodded, looking at his watch. "Let me leave you with a thought," he said. "Or a question, really. How do you know what it is to be from Earth? It's the only thing you know, isn't it? To answer your first question, Ms. Grayson: Why would I want to go into space and learn about worlds when there is so much to understand here? That's not what you said, but it's what you meant. Answer—to learn about Earth. To understand why events happened the way they did—on Earth. To understand why we are what we are—here, on Earth. It's the old thing of trying to answer 'what is it like to live in DC?' or 'on the American continent?' or 'be an undergraduate at Catholic U?' You can't make much of an answer to any of those questions unless you've lived in another city or on another continent or gone to another college." He stopped on the walk and looked her in the eyes. "To know something else."

"Because," AJ prompted.

"Because we define ourselves and our existence by making comparisons with lateral experiences."

 

She parted ways with the professor in front of Mullen. She had sacrificed the one set of books for the bed, but taking pity on her, Arthur had dropped a gift in her lap by telling her the library from time to time received donations of old books. And whatever books they didn't want, they were always willing to sell. And they would take "wish lists" in case a book might come in.

It took some time, but finally she found a senior librarian who knew about the program and got her information set up. Should any of her requested books come in, she would be notified and given a chance to purchase them. AJ felt that at least something good was accomplished after her earlier mishap.

She was just finishing up as she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye, a man leaving—was it? She quickly thanked the librarian and sprinted off down the stairs. "Sarek!" She didn't know whether she had voiced it as a call or a question, but the man turned, looking for the source. She ran to catch up. "How has your English practice been coming?"

He stood transfixed for a moment, as if unsure to respond to being approached in such a direct manner. She realized at that moment she had never really seen him outside the shadowy realm of the library stacks. His features were strong and fine, and in the bright sun the sweep of his brow and ears against the ink black hair stood out. In the confines of the library, he could be mistaken as human. Here in the light, she could no longer ignore the fact he was not. Even his clothing, while it was obviously meant to blend in, had a unique cut and fit that put it outside the norm. "It is… improved," he quietly toned.

"Have you gotten out to see much of town since I saw you last? I'm new here as well, so I know it can be overwhelming."

"You are Terran."

Was it a statement or a question?

"Another city, " she tried.

He understood and said so with a nod. In a brief time she was breathless trying to keep up with his long strides, and stopped by one of the benches. "Do you think we could sit down for a bit? Your legs are just too long for mine."

She flopped down on the bench and he stood for a moment as if waiting for a formal invitation or trying to decide if it was proper. "I won't bite you, I promise. Please sit. Look I'll show you where I'm from." She pulled out her comp screen from the knapsack and set it to show a map of the Northeast. He craned his neck a little to see from a standing position and she could see him fighting his curiosity before finally giving in and sitting on the bench. Close enough to see the screen but not to touch, AJ realized. "Let me show you."

When the map company credits faded, the Earth rotated above the table, stripped of its clouds, the way it looked from space. This was what he must have seen when he came here, she thought, without the clouds stripped away. She spun the view over turning the east coast toward them. "Here's where we are," she said, running the pointer up the Chesapeake Bay, and then on up the coast to Massachusetts, "and here's where I'm from." She zoomed in on the Cape and marked a spot on the ocean side.

 

He examined the aerial view with interest. "There is water around this."

"It used to be connected to the mainland, but now it's an island, Stella Maris, surrounded completely by water. We still call it the Cape as well though." The vid clips attached were pretty good; even the roar of the surf was accurate.

"The ocean."

She didn't think he'd been close to it on the ground by the way he was watching the clips. "It's much louder on the beach," she told him.

"Beach?" He looked away from the running archive and waited.

"The sand at the edge of the water."

"Ah, the sand," he said nodding, and watched the clips for a few more moments.

"It does that all night long," she told him, "and all day. Sometimes louder and wilder when a storm comes in, but it never stops."

He nodded. "As the beating of a heart."

Yes. A slow, heavy beat, she thought. "I've tried to look things up about Vulcan," she said.

He started to shake his head.

"I've tried to do some research on it."

"Research. Yes."

"There's not much to find," she told him. "Mostly old stuff about trade from the last century. Current archives aren't very informative either." She watched his eyes. "There is very little information on Vulcan available," she tried.

"Yes."

"I did find a globe map, though. There are so many desert areas!"

More accurately, there were very few areas on Vulcan that weren't in desert climate. There was one huge desert straddling its equator reaching large, bloated tentacles north and south for hundreds of miles. Unlike on Earth, where oceans, rivers, and streams made natural political boundaries, sections of the globe had been marked in territories of three colors, some divided by mountains, but most drawn in odd-shaped polygons whose corners wrapped at seemingly random places in the desert.

"It is drier on Vulcan," he said clearly. "Our ocean is sand."

That was what it had looked like!

"The storms cover the city in a cloud of sand."

"What do you think of Earth so far?

"It is very beautiful." A sudden silence came up between them. He seemed to hesitate for a moment and then said, "I leave soon—your November."

"You're kidding!"

A puzzled look entered his deep-set eyes. "I do not understand 'kidding'."

"Kidding means, well it means, in this instance that I don't want to believe you."

"You will say I lie?" He visibly drew back from her.

How was she going to straighten this one out? "From my tone you would know that I meant the opposite. I'm just disappointed that you are leaving so soon, that I don't want it to be true. It's one of those phrases that can mean any number of things depending on the tone of voice that's used. Want me to show you how this works?"

He nodded, interested. She could tell by the body language.

"All right. First, after your statement, I say: 'You're kidding!' in that tone to show my disappointment, or this if the speaker follows 'You're kidding!' with something like 'Oh, I don't believe it!'"

"The tone is similar," he said.

"Right."

"But it is also meant in reverse."

"Exactly. You're catching on, aren't you?" She had to explain that expression. "You're following my reasoning."

"I understand. Yes."

"Right. Now, this is where the first person says 'Why? What do you mean?'"

"What do you mean?"

"What?"

Wasn't he following her? She thought he was.

"'What do you mean?'" he said again. "The next statement."

He was following her.

"I am asking in this for an explanation of your statements of 'You're kidding' and 'Oh, I don't believe it.'"

"Right. That's when I would explain what the coincidence was that made me say 'You're kidding!' in the first place." She saw him nod. 

 

"This kind of exchange usually brings people together because it reveals what they have in common through the coincidence." 

AJ hadn't considered that before. But she realized now how true it was.

"The other?"

"What, Sarek?"

"There is another use?"

It was true. Coincidence did that. Someone brings up a subject you were just thinking or talking to someone else about. And if you shared the recognition of the coincidence with the new person, you had an opening to talk to that person and discover more coincidences—things in common—and grow closer. "Well, you use to call someone's bluff."

Sarek was waiting. Patiently. And with interest.

"This is one where you think the person maybe lying. Sometimes it's a friendly joke," she explained. "But the real use is when someone is trying to put something over on you—take unfair advantage—and you want to 'call their bluff'—show you suspect you're being lied to, but not risk their wrath. If you actually call someone a liar to their face, you're forcing them to retaliate in some way."

"Forcing?" A question. But he had his own answer. "One formulates and makes reply by choice."

"That's right. It is a choice. But Earth people have tempers. And they lose them."

"They behave emotionally."

"Yes. When you call someone a 'liar,' you're putting them in a situation where they have to defend their honor."

Did he understand that concept? He did. She saw the nod.

"But you speak of an untruth."

"Especially then."

"This is not the honor," he replied. "I don't understand."

"Earth people are more angry when you catch them in a lie, or at least they're more likely to feel they have to defend themselves."

"Why is this?"

"Because they were trying to put one over on you, but you turned the tables and took the upper hand." Oh, great. Three idiomatic expressions in one sentence. AJ was deciding which one to tackle first when Sarek said:

"A deceit revealed. Yes."

He nodded to himself, then looked to her. What intelligent eyes! She could almost see the thoughts speeding behind them.

"The other use," he said, "another example spoken of—by—you. 'You're kidding.' Another meaning?"

"Right." She gave him examples of one. "When you think someone is being deceitful, and you want to call them on it, but you don't want a confrontation, you can say—"

"'You're kidding.'"

His natural even-toned delivery worked by itself. AJ almost thought he'd darkened the tone slightly, but was sure it only seemed that way. "Exactly!"

"What is next?"

"You wait. You watch them."

"Yes?"

"And then, if they're smart, they'll back down. Most people laugh."

"Laugh?"

"Um-hmm. Because you've caught them, but you've given them a chance to save face, to pretend to themselves and any other witnesses that they were just making a harmless joke, not really trying to fool you, so it's all right that you called them on it because, after all, that's what they intended to do all along."

"The upper hand," he said. He turned his left hand and looked at his palm. "But in appearance only."

"That's right!"

He looked away for a moment. When he caught her eye again, she saw something new in them. "This is deceit." He took a long deep breath and stood. "You have given much to be considered, AJ. I will see you again?"

"I'm sure you will, Sarek," she laughed, "and I'm sure by that time you'll be even more the English expert!"

She watched as he strode away on those long legs. He stood out alone in the crowd that parted as he passed.

 

Chapter 7

Daddy called when she was on her way out the door to remind her about All Saints Mass the next morning. She promised to go and apologize for not calling him first.

"Oh, I know you're busy, sweetheart."

"What are you doing for Halloween, Daddy?"

"I guess I'll be going on Father Tom's hayride," he told her. "Won't be the same without my 'best girl' along. Your old dad can get pretty scared when the pirates come."

"Oh, Daddy, I'm sure you'll make it out alive without me. Tell everyone hello for me."

"I miss you, Starfish."

"I miss you too, Daddy. I'll be home for Thanksgiving before you know it. Less than a month."

"I love you, Honey."

Every minute this went on it was going to be harder for either of them to let go, "Love you, too, Daddy. See you soon."

 

Trish had said that she didn't need a costume, but Trish herself was waiting for her under a tree with a short skirt with a sharply angled hem, a top with stiff flanges at the shoulders, and boots swept back at the ankles.

"I thought you said no costumes after you weren't able to find anything when we went up to the country?"

"Oh, this?" Trish innocently answered, "this is nothing, I just threw together some old things I found in my closet."

"And what you supposed to be?" AJ thought she knew the answer, or at least knew what she thought it looked like.

"I'm a 20th Century Space girl!'

"Looks more like a 20th Century hooker to me," AJ murmured, taking the lead across campus.

 

"What are you supposed to be?" asked Barry, as soon as they got through the door.

"I'm a 20th Century space girl. You know, like in that old cartoon, The Jetsons."

"You look like a hooker."

One of the other boys nudged him.

"And I suppose you'd know?" asked AJ.

All of the sudden there was a large commotion at the door—Barry's frat brothers dressed up as Star Fleet officers.

"Hey, look, Trish!" said Barry. "The Fleet's in!"

"Hey, Barry," One of them called across the room, "who's that great looking hooker next to you."

Exasperated, Trish launched back into her explanation, "I'm not a hooker! I'm a 20th Century Space Girl."

Part of the group had broken off and gathered around Barry, jostling and making cracks about the nearby costumes.

"Sure looks like a hooker to me, Space Girl," one remarked, and then turned to AJ. "And who are you supposed to be?"

Trish had said no costumes, so she had just pulled out her fall clothing, happy that it had finally got cool enough to wear it. Just a pair of knickers and a striped pullover.

"I know," said Barry. "She's the little kid in 'Hunt Country.' The ratty little brother."

"So, is that the reason you have your arm around me?" AJ countered as he laughed nervously.

 

Someone had taken the time and trouble to decorate the dining hall with – yes! – real gourds and Indian corn. The support columns were tied 'round with corn stalks and on one little table, a jack-o'-lantern glowed that looked like the natural fruit.

A woman sat in the shadow, talking with a man across from her.

"Who is that?"

"That's the fortune teller!" breathed Trish. "She's—oh, look! She's free! Come on!"

It was a palmist, or a palm-reader, whatever it was called. AJ saw her talking with some of the younger faculty who had dropped in when Trish pushed her forward.

"Go on! Tell her about your dream!"

The woman was in her twenties; she had light hair and hazel eyes, but AJ didn't see her look at anyone directly for more than a moment. She took AJ's hand, waiting.

"I've had it before," she said, feeling foolish. "What I mean is that I've had it more than once. I'm looking down at the beach, only the ocean is pulled back—I can't see it anywhere. It's just gone. I don't know… and then it's back. Everywhere. The waves are everywhere and the sound is too loud. It hurts my ears."

The fortuneteller said nothing. She glanced once again at AJ, then returned her gaze to her palm.

"Somebody—you know, like you, said it was… some kind of… well, something from The Big Shake. I was there, or something."

"A great journey."

"What?"

What did that have to do with her dream? It sounded like a typical fortune teller phrase.

"Where?"

"You won't go alone," said the woman. She seemed to be listening to something. "You were ill this spring?"

AJ winced uncomfortably. "Well, I did have a fainting spell, but the doctors couldn't find anything." 

She had been standing by the Blessed Mother Statue in the garden one moment and the next opening her eyes to the seagulls soaring overhead. They had said she was out for almost five minutes and Daddy had been frantic. He hadn't wanted her out of his sight for weeks.

"He was calling to you even then, trying to find you."

She heard laughter all around her, but when she turned back to the fortune teller, the hazel eyes were amber glass and trained right on hers.

"In August you had your birthday," she said calmly. "The ocean surrounded you."

A solemn nod.

"It's next year. The choice is yours."

AJ felt the woman's grip loosen slightly on her hand. "Wait a minute," said AJ. "What choice? I have to make a decision? Next year? When?"

"The decision has already been made," said the woman. "But when the time comes there is always a choice."

"A choice of what?"

"To do or not. To go or stay"

"Oh, that's no answer—"

"You know what your name means?"

Not this again. "Of course."

What a disappointment! As if a name meant anything but what was fashionable the year you were born or who in the family could push their weight around enough to get your parents to name you after them! Or the reverse, in her case.

"You do?"

AJ leaned forward, nodding, whispering. "'Lovable.'" The chuckles, of course. And she thought she heard Barry Stunkard's distinctive snickering in the background.

The woman looked at her closely for several moments. AJ felt that she was being looked through to the bone.

"Or beloved, worthy of love. But there's another meaning as well," she said finally, "unintentional, but maybe the truer one."

"You aren't going to tell me, are you?"

The woman shook her head.

The others were still laughing, but AJ was serious now. There was something about this woman. When you looked in her eyes you saw a mirror that—

The eyes closed.

"Will you at least tell me which one I am? Which meaning? I can find the other myself."

When the fortune teller opened her eyes she looked tired. "Both," she said. "I hope you're both. One for you. The other for..." Finally, gently, she let go of AJ's hand, setting it palm-down on the table, "…for the other."

 

"So, are you?"

"Am I what, Barry?" She felt like she had been the night's entertainment.

"'Loveable'?"

There were times when she thought that legally changing her name to "Kick me" would make life easier to deal with.

Somebody had cut the cake and was scooping out ice cream. Barry dogged her to the table. "Well, are you?"

She felt off balance, ungrounded, "You didn't believe any of that, did you?"

She had enough Halloween for the night. She suddenly wished she were back on the island with Daddy and his pirate gang, where life seemed so secure and certain. Instead she settled for going home early and drawing the covers over her head.

 

In the morning she was still thinking about it. It was all so ridiculous! It was all right to have fun with it on Halloween night, but that was over, it was morning. AJ stopped to dig for cash under a screen running a newscast, searching for enough change for a quick drink before classes.

"—many say was a successful exchange between worlds."

She turned to catch the end of a vidclip of several people gliding along an airport transwalk. All of them with smooth, impassive faces, all of them tall and regal, all of them Vulcan. One of them was Sarek.

She had wanted to ask him so much more about his world and his life. But it was November now, and in November he said he would be gone. And she hadn't even said goodbye.


End file.
